Systemic Development > Hardware

Sony Playstation 3 as nerve center for audio and HT

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Carlman:
I'm considering buying a Playstation 3 as a blu-ray player, web browser, and transport for audio out to a DAC.

What got me started with this idea is my friend Bryan suggested it as a Blu-ray DVD player...

And then I was also looking at buying a silent PC purely for audio playback. And the one I want is $2,000.  I then learned the Playstation is near silent and costs $400-$500 and is essentially a computer that can have a Windows or Linux operating system.  I can load Windows XP, map my network drives with music, and then run Foobar on it the way I like.  The PS3 has USB and digital outs, so I'd have my USB DAC connected. And I could connect traditional coax/toslink digital outs as well..

Has anyone done this? 

How useable would it be in this configuration? Will I be rebooting, flipping around from one thing to play DVD's, surf the web and play music?  I'll hopefully find out if Bryan gets the time to play around with his... but thought I'd ask if anyone had done it here... And if you know anyone that has, please invite them to participate here.. :)

Thanks,
Carl

richidoo:
You'll need this...

Sounds like a good plan. Here's Perfect Vision's review last year:
http://www.avguide.com/file-download?review=2278

miklorsmith:
That's an interesting idea.  It seems this kind of nerve center is almost inevitable.  I'll be interested to see where this search leads.

hometheaterdoc:
I've got a PS3 here if you want to play with it.  I bought it as a hedge your bets kind of situation since Profile 2.0 players are still in the announced but not shipping category.  I didn't want to have something that I'd have to dump for a huge loss 6 months from now if I picked up one of the current stand alone players on the market.  I had a gift certificate for amazon I needed to use up and got one of these with it...

The PS3 is also pretty darn fast once you fire up the disc, something that can't be said about the other players out there.

It is *not* silent though... It's very noticable to me.  Definitely louder than my modded TivoHD with a detuned WD 1TB drive.

Carlman:
Cool, thanks for the offer.. I may try it out but I don't want to deny you your system... It's disappointing to read it makes some noise.  The one I heard didn't seem to make much at all but maybe the ambient noise was already kind of high.  If I can build cabinetry around it, behind glass, etc. to get it pretty close to silent, I'll be happy... definitely worth a shot given all the features and value. 
Blu-ray DVD player + regular DVD player + Foobar audio player + web browser for $400-$500!?  I think I'd be crazy not to at least give it a shot.

Right now I'm looking at the following for HT:
PS3 as described above
Onkyo TX-NR905 pre/pro receiver, powering the center and 2 rears
I'll use the preamp outs of the receiver to my existing 2-channel setup
Panasonic PT-AE2000U projector (I only need to run 1 HDMI or component cable from receiver)

I think it's coming together nicely and at a reasonable price.  HT is still secondary to the 2-channel requirements so I'm not going to go nuts matching everything to the nth degree.  The speakers all match since I figured that was the most important.

Now I just need a sub.... and I'm done with HT gear.

-C

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